anndody

La Crosse, Wisconsin With a population of about 50,000, La Crosse, Wis., is a great staging ground for exploring the natural wonders of the upper Mississippi River area. Although winters can be bitterly cold, friendly Midwesterners and the nearby ski slopes will keep your spirits high. The spring opens an active outdoor culture of camping, hiking, hunting, and fishing that brings more than a million visitors to the area each year. Explore the mighty Mississippi on a riverboat tour, or try your luck with the northern pike in Lake Onalaska. "Great people, fun town," says Dave Lueck, a 36-year-old graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse . "It's not too big, not too small." And with a 2008 median home sale price of $113,000, it's also an affordable destination.

*After 30 years, local postal carrier trades foot route for one on French Island By CHRIS HUBBUCH | La Crosse Tribune file:///Users/jaybowers/Desktop/Picture%20clipping%202.pictClipping . Jay Bowers has lived for decades in a farmhouse outside Onalaska, but some of his closest neighbors are in south La Crosse. Bowers is a mail carrier, one of 62 who deliver to 48 routes in the city of La Crosse. After 30 years as a United States Postal Service letter carrier in La Crosse Jay Bowers has given up his foot route for a driving route. PETER THOMSON photo “We’re the face of the federal government,” he says. For the past 16 years, his office has been route 23, a 15-square-block postage stamp nestled between Cass and Market streets under Grandad Bluff. Five days a week — in the proverbial snow, rain, heat, gloom of night — Bowers hiked upwards of 10 miles carrying letters and bills, birthday cards and catalogs to 401 front doors. It wasn’t his neighborhood, but the gregarious postman knew his ...